I grew up in central Arkansas and for those of you from other places, growing up there is like growing up twenty years in the past. The place never seems to be culturally caught up to the rest of the country. Fashion trends hit there last. Back in high school, I had a friend who was a full-on punk with Doc Martins, trench coat, and a mo-hawk. He was from out of state and people always asked me about my "gay" friend. The was the best they could do with punk since he was the only one they'd ever seen.

Race, however, was a part of every day life. I could not get through a day without hearing the N word. I remember first noticing this when I was in third grade and we played Star Trek on the playground. Demetris was one of my school friends and we let him play Captain Kirk because he was the only kid who had an authentic gold Star Trek shirt. This was the only criterion to play the coveted role of Kirk we seemed to respect. On days Demetris didn't wear the shirt, he was Scotty because he wanted to try his best at that outrageous Scottish accent. Demetris was one of my first black friends. He was a nice kid and I wanted him to come over and play. I didn't have many friends back then because my home life was a nightmare. And you probably guessed by now when I wanted to invite him over, he wasn't allowed, even if he wore the gold Star Trek shirt.

Right around that time in my my life, my mom was on her second marriage and this guy was quite the dick. His name was David and he did things like hit my mom and beat me with a boat paddle. He kept loaded guns in the house and I was nearly killed by my step-sister. David was as stereo-typical white trash as you can image. After duck hunting, he plucked the dead fowl in the front yard causing a fog of feathers that spread out in a radius of two adjacent homes.

Around the time I was seven, I found out a black family moved into our neighborhood. I can't remember exactly where they moved in relation to our house, but they should have known better by looking at the mushroom cloud of feathers, dead fish guts on the carport, garbage-strewing Labradors, and the overt public yelling and beatings all within the constrains of our lot alone. Alas, they moved in. David was furious. This was personal for him. So personal, he did something I've never told publicly before. David bought black house paint and sneaked down to this new family's house and defaced their house with the black paint. He finished off his work with a burning cross. I know this happened because my mom told me about the paint and the whole neighborhood buzzed about the paint and cross. I suspect David had accomplices. I also suspect he was privately cheered in that neighborhood. However, being seven and continually hiding from an abusive step-brother kept me away from most adult conversations.

Rose City Middle School (formerly Elementary; Credit Google Maps)

During this time, one of my places of refuge was my grandmother's house. She drove into "nigger town" twice a week to pick up one of two ladies to do her house cleaning. On Mondays she would get Lucille and Thursdays it was Rose. Both of these ladies were nice to me and busted their asses to clean my grandmother's house. Now, my grandmother was busy all of the time running the family construction business and wanted cheap housekeeping. So my grandmother took time to drive over to one of the poorest place in North Little Rock, Rose City, to bring these ladies to our house. I clearly remember one trip playing in the back of my grandmother's 1976 Ford Country Squire station wagon with my mother riding in the passenger seat. I remember my mom saying "nigger babies are really the cutest of them all."

Yeah, I grew up around racism. I know what it feels, sounds, and tastes like. From the subtleness of my grandmother ignoring my repeated questions as to why I couldn't use the same bathroom as Lucille to the ugly behavior of David trying to drive a black family from our street. I've seen a lot of it. Growing up white in this environment was like some sort of club. Other white kids felt comfortable saying the most vile and hate-filled comments because I was somehow in on the joke. I grew to hate people in general.

There is something about me even my family never understood. I'm way different than they are. I always have been. My grandfather was all about construction and mechanics and working the earth. I wrote stories, drew comic books, and lived in my head. I had few real friends and was generally considered a weird kid. I never liked the racist talk at the dinner table and remembered being embarrassed when they said things in public. It wasn't until I became self-aware that I could pin-point my disgust at that behavior. I hated it just as I hated working construction, as much as I hated David.

Eventually I left Arkansas and the biggest reason was its seemingly irreparable broken culture. I grew to loathe the way everything was racial. Martin Luther King Day always stirs up this complex torrent of memories, feelings, and images. I am reminded white resentment that Dr. King received a day of honor and how racist Southerners unofficially embrace it as Robert E. Lee day. I am reminded of Central High School and the forty-year struggle and financial nightmare that central Arkansas schools became. I am reminded of taking a black girl on a date to the Arkansas State Fair and being publicly ridiculed by whites while she was publicly harassed by blacks. I am reminded that there are many types of trauma a person can suffer, and one of them is growing up around so much hate.

Surely I'm not the only out there who grew up this way and who has similar feelings. If there are people like me, they recoil at any racism and try to avoid any appearance of it. It has nothing to do with white liberal guilt or making up for their own sins of the past. They are who they are because deep inside they know right from wrong in spite of how they grew up.  I'm not trying to present myself as special. The truth is I'm just an average guy who can barely take care of his own family. I hate politics and I especially hold disdain for racial politics. I avoid openly talking race but I enjoy reading publications like The Root because I know there are different and reasonable sides to every story (and it's a damn good read too).

I do credit Martin Luther King, Jr. as a role model. I know reading about him in the fifth grade made a life-changing impression. I clearly remember his picture in my history text book. I believe it's the same photo I included in this article. I'm still in awe of his driving desire to make a difference in a world where most of us have a sphere of influence only within our own households. Honestly, if I had been Dr. King, I'd have given up long before getting the national spotlight. As long as I live I will never fully understand his optimism, faith, and drive. Such things seem to evade me even to this day. However, Dr. King made a difference in my life. At a time when I began to question who I was, I read about a great man who confirmed I did know the difference between right and wrong even though it had not fully articulated as such in my mind.

Ironically, fifth grade was also the year I was bussed to a school outside my neighborhood to, of all places, Rose City Elementary. My teacher, Mr. Allen, an extraordinarily tall, thin black man, loved being a teacher so much I remember him working with me as I struggled with math and athletics. It was this man who so passionately taught us about Dr. King. I've never forgotten Mr. Allen or his kindness, or the fact he was so incredibly tall. Sadly, my mom pulled me out of public school because I got the snot beat out of me daily by a gang of five white kids from my class. They beat me up on the way to school and on the way back. So began my all white private school education for the next three and a half years. But that's another story for another time.

Martin Luther King Day is special to me. Like all holidays, it's personal and evokes memories, some of which are painful and some are painfully wonderful. However, every year I go through these memories trying to figure out what to do with them. This year, I decided to share. I hope somebody somewhere can identify with the pain of growing up around this kind of hatred and turn it into something positive. None of us have to be like our parents, on any level. I'm proof of that.

Previous Related Posts:

• Little Rock Central High School Museum
• Central Arkansas Schools, Desegregation, and 50 Years of Government Micromanagent

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Mary Wagoner

I just found out a good friend of mine passed away. Mary Wagoner (@MaryroseWagoner) was introduced to me by a mutual friend fifteen years ago. We worked more projects together than I can count. I helped her with website work, application design, and documentation. She did marketing and PR. The thing about Mary was she knew PR like nobody else I ever met. She shared her experience and knowledge and taught me a lot about that side of the business.

Mary has two daughters I've met once or twice each. But I feel like I know them well because Mary told me all about them often. She loved being a mother and raised her children as single mother, which always deserves my deepest respect. She told me two weeks ago, when I was in Arkansas, how proud she was of them both. They are both smart, independent women because of Mary.

Mary is also one of two people I credit with dragging me into social media kicking and screaming. Mary hammered on me constantly to get on Twitter and Facebook. Eventually I did and she told me a couple of weeks ago how much she enjoyed my blog, tweets, and Facebook page as she dropped me off at the Little Rock Airport. That was the last time I saw her.

Her family has put funeral information on her Facebook page. Sadly, I cannot make the funeral. But my heart goes out to the family. I considered her one of my best friends and will miss her terribly.

Image via Wikipedia

In September of 2008 one of the greatest writers of our time, David Foster Wallace, committed suicide. He hanged himself. This was a complete shock to me. I enjoyed his work before, but I was unaware of his life-long struggle with depression. Wallace was the writer's writer. He was brilliant and made me look at fiction in a totally new way. After this tragedy, articles started popping up online about the link between his brilliance as a writer and his depression. Sadly, observers are quick to make this link about creative people as if they are show ponies.

While history is full of depressed geniuses the reality is that depression is called "depression" for a reason. Depression keeps its victims from functioning. There is nothing glamorous, fun, or vogue about depression. It is a continuous struggle and those in its throes can ruin their whole lives without caring about much of anything close to a creative thought. My most creative moments have been under a deadline not from within a cloud of self-loathing. Those who think depression is a plus for any artist, writer, or scientist have not slept through life, destroyed their families, or alienated themselves from all of their friends.

In my case, I'm biologically predisposed to having depression. The fact I had a fractured family and my father was in and out of my life like trendy fashion only sealed the depression into my life for good. It came to a head in 2003 when I moved my family from Chicago to the DFW area. I remember lying on my father's couch surrounded by stuff we didn't put in storage. I don't know how long I'd been on the couch but a lot of time had passed; my phone rang and my inbox filled up. I was avoiding clients and caught a clear glimpse of reality. I found a doctor and asked, "how do you know if you have depression?" Since then I've been receiving treatment, but it took a lot to climb out of that hole. Today I realize that even when I thought I was better, I was on my way to getting better but some of the behaviors and feelings still linger.

Around 2007 I left a startup company and inadvertently burned bridges there. I took a full-time job and started my real recovery. Getting by with depression is as much about self discovery as it is about receiving medical treatment. I had to swallow the most bitter of pills: I was not meant to own and run a business. The specific stress associated with self employment pushed my buttons like nothing else. Piss-poor health care, risk taking, unstable income, and especially the sales process were triggers for my depression. After joining Sprint, a company I love more than any other I've worked for, my depression started improving. Having solid benefits and believing in my work started healing old wounds.

The second thing to happen to me was Twitter. My friend convinced me to join Twitter and jump in. Being the introvert I am, I mocked Twitter from the sidelines. However, as someone on Twitter pointed out, it was like study hall. I was connecting with professional people again, something I hadn't done since I lived in Chicago. I branched out and next thing I know I'm in the UX community. I think this is a unique community. I was used to people being protective of their knowledge and territorial with their experience. UX people aren't like that. They are a supportive lot and they encourage each other in ways that was foreign to me. They root for each other at conferences and help each other out with all sorts of problems. I felt at home. The UX movement was at a place I arrived myself, but from a different direction. I have this strange way of seeing how system interlock and I realized I was a UX'er without being called one (more on that in a future article). So Twitter fit like a glove and I've not looked back.

How do I deal with depression? Now I have a set of rules I made for myself that are based on how things should be, not how I feel. Regardless of how I feel, I must follow my rules. My rules include everything from keeping my job to adhering to a regular bedtime, all without getting caught up in the day's feelings. So it's not as easy as it sounds, but it's something I can use to keep me anchored. I know when I'm  too far away from them and I correct myself. Feelings can betray me at a moment's notice but pre-determined rules override those.

I continue to stay heavily involved on Twitter because it's an excellent way to be in a professional community without sacrificing a lot of time.  I try to keep my blog updated, but it's not how I make my living so it goes to the back of the line when necessary. It is possible to function with depression. I still have bad times that may last for days. However, it's manageable. In fact, overall I haven't felt this good, ever.

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Now I will be adding content and tweaking the site in such a way you'll think it's a "Can you see the differences?" game from Highlights.

It all began with my super secret start-up company. I had been working for about two years on this venture and I thought it was going somewhere. However, reality took a huge bite out of my hide. While we were meeting regularly and discussing potential investors, sales strategies, prospective customers, and even office space, my bills kept rolling in and my family life suffered.

I had a mental breakdown of sorts. Not like a dramatic Joan Crawford, straight-jacket, mouth-frothing fall out. It was introverted and full of doubts and indecision. By the time I had realized what was happening, the damage was done. The good part of this was I realized I was in a different place than the company CEO. Without a wife and children, he can take risks and afford to lose much more than I. And I knew that two years ago, but I kept thinking there was investment capital around the corner. Each week I would hear from the CEO "it's going to be next week" at the same time collection agencies mounted a telephone offensive. I held off getting full-time employment and tried to live on contracts until the company was funded enough to pay a salary for me. Obviously, this didn't happen. I spent nearly two years without decent medical coverage, for example. My out-of-pocket medical expenses were astronomical and self-employed individuals pay a lot of money for coverage and still have to pay through the nose for prescriptions, lab visits, and tests. At one point, we thought one of my kids had a blood disease. Imagine how many tests and visits are involved in ruling something like that out. We are still paying for many of our medical issues from that time period.

The bad part of this was that I should have realized long ago that I'm not in my 20s and I can't live with my parents while I'm waiting on my dreams to get funded. I was too timid in the 1990s to start my own venture and cash in on the confetti of investment money being thrown around at every good idea. My own self-doubt kept me looking for safety when risk was possible. Then I ended up taking risks when I had a family.

I took a long-term contract with a telecom company and ended up with a good offer and benefits. The breakup between myself and my super secret start-up was not pretty. There was bitterness on both sides, probably enough to keep friendships from healing and enough to make sure that I'm not involved with any of the company's future successes. I do wish the company succeeds, but I will watch it from a distance.

It's not easy realizing I can't do something. I've always had a hard time with it. I come by it honestly from a family of hard-working small business owners. My grandfather is the epitome of the hard-working American dream. He started out with a dump truck and built a reputable construction company. In a way, I feel I've let him down, maybe my whole family. My wife told me I was in an impossible situation working during the day to pay bills and then trying to come home and be both a father and contribute to this business. I still don't see it that way since there are people who do it every day, or at least that's what business magazines will have you believe. I haven't read many articles profiling successful entrepreneurs' broken families, ruined credit, depression, and suffering health. A friend of mine told me that she watch many ad agencies try to start up and the toll it took on families. She said the successful agencies made it off the ground, but the founders ended up divorced almost every time. Knowing all of that, it still stings when I think that maybe, just maybe, I could have pulled it off like some kind of magazine cover super entrepreneur.

The CEO told me the definition of an entrepreneur is somebody who will climb Mount Everest, even when his wife and kids are begging him not to. This hit me especially hard because it revealed his lack of understanding about having a family and it also was a message to me that I'm not an entrepreneur, or at least what he considers an entrepreneur. I spent a couple of months reeling from his evaluation of my entrepreneurial spirit. But my wife called me a couple of weeks ago and said, "Here is why I love your company." She proceeded to tell me that my oldest daughter was able to get $400 worth of glasses for only $25. My benefits are excellent and I get cool perks.

I may be a cog in a large corporate machine and I may not ever make millions. However, I've learned a lot about myself and how difficult it is to start a business. I respect those who can pull it off without destroying who they are. As for the company, it seems to be where it was when I left, but with a somewhat more developed product. I hope they do well. As for me, there are other places to visit than Mount Everest.

After work, I have a family and my personal business issues that constantly conflict. I do see a light way down there. It's like a little pinhole right now, but it's there. The daily headaches and my falling behind naturally force me into a panicky workflow. I'm disorganized and reactive when I'd rather feel more structured and in control.

With Christmas nearly here, I'm also a little reflective. I'm sure you know the kind of philosophical reflective questioning I'm referring to. What is really important to me? In the end, is all of this work worth it? Is the meaning of life really "42"? Ultimately, I can answer these questions without much thought. I wouldn't have chosen the path if I wasn't forced into some of it by life's situations as well as my own desire to succeed. I nearly hit diminishing returns last year and it took a wake-up call in the form of health issues to turn me around. So how do I know if all of my work will pay off and it will be worth it?

For starters, I have given my time a value. This has been very helpful to me when it comes to what I choose to work on. In my case I say that I'm generally worth $50 an hour. That's about right for my experience. So now, I use that as a basis for helping me decide what I work on. Providing for my family is my first priority. So I know that I need to minimally work say 40 hours a week to make that happen.

After I make my minimum requirement for income, then I can choose what to do with the rest of my time. Still retaining the value of $50 an hour, I can choose to work extra time with my primary income source, generate other revenue with side projects, spend time with my family, or donate that time for goodwill. Since family is a big priority, I need to make sure I dedicate a minimal amount of time each week to my children. It's not that I think of my family as business, but if I force myself to leave work behind for those hours, ignore the cell phone, and stick with my schedule, then I prevent the outside world from invading my family time.

Goodwill time still has a value. Let's say I decide to help my family with computer problems or I devote my services to my church, it's important to track that time. It's not that I expect them to pay me, but I do it so I can keep in perspective the time I am giving away without financial return. You see, if I know that I can only devote 10 hours per week of goodwill time and I also know that my church really needs help that week, my friend may have to wait. It's all about having boundaries around the things I have to do so they don't conflict. If you don't watch your time, you end up panicky (like I am right now).

Don't misunderstand my intent. You cannot be cold and calculating when it comes to the time you devote to your church or family. What I'm saying is that you can track your time in such a way that you ensure you don't drop the ball and you say "no" before you commit to something you just can't deliver. I have put myself in that position more times than i care to admit if there is one thing I could change about me in the past, it would be my tendency to take on more than I can handle.

Today, I'm spending time catching up and planning a little better. I read Getting Things Done a while ago and it made a huge impact on me. I need to remind myself of how important it is to apply structure to my personal and professional workflow. My goal for 2006 is to prevent conflict among my various activities and spend more time with my family. Structure and tracking is really the only way to prevent diminishing returns. Yes, it's anal, but the trade-off is less pressure.

If you don't know what cluster headaches are, read this:

Cluster headaches are severe, one-sided headaches that recur in groups, or "clusters," over a period of weeks to months. While common headaches can be painful, cluster headaches can be debilitating. Cluster headaches are sometimes referred to as "suicide headaches" because they are unbearably painful. Although cluster headaches can be temporarily disabling, they do not cause permanent damage.

Cluster headaches are relatively rare, and are one of the few types of headaches that affect men more often than women.

"Suicide headache" is right. The pain is so unbelievably unbearable, there have been times I thought my body would give up. I'm not really a suicide thinker, but I'd do anything to get rid of the headache. Which is why I have no hesitation to give myself a shot of Imitrex.

Symptoms include burning or sharp, piercing pain on one side of your head. The pain radiates around the temple and eye, with the affected eye becoming red, watery, or puffy. The eyelid may droop, and you may have a runny or stuffy nose on the affected side.

….

The pain usually intensifies quickly—within 5 to 10 minutes of onset—and may last for around 30 minutes to several hours. These headaches may begin at night, within 2 to 3 hours of falling asleep. They may start while you are dreaming; however, they can occur at any time. Cluster headaches can continue for days, weeks, or months before you stop having symptoms (remission). You may not have another cycle of cluster headaches for months or years; less commonly, your headaches may become chronic and continuous.

Some historical figures have reported severe headaches that seem to fit the description of cluster headaches. Edgar Allen Poe and Friedrich Nietzsche are a couple of guys who self-treated their chronic headaches with opium and alcohol. I know what it's like to have these headaches without immediate relief. I've had cluster headaches since before Imitrex was created. Then I can only imagine not knowing what's going on because of the butchers that passed themselves off as doctors back then. I can imagine to avoid a lobotomy, opium seemed like a good idea.

Imitrex is a wonder drug. Within 10 minutes of an injection, the headache is gone–completely. The downside to it is that a single, two-dose box, which is how the drug is packaged, is $135.00 at Sam's Club. My insurance doesn't cover the meds. For me to have what I need to get through a cycle of headaches, I have to cough up $2000 or more. So I take the pills when I don't need to go anywhere. They are slower, but I don't go broke treating the headaches. My goal for next year is to have a health savings account with enough money in it to cover a cycle with Imitrex injections.

I'm going to get back to writing this week as the other treatments have made things bearable. I'm on Prednisone and Verapamil, which are both used to shorten the time I'm in a cycle. All of this is a lot to be on at the same time. But then again, I like my sanity.

No, really.

I just got back from a trip to Chicago where I finished up a project. The nice part of this trip was my stay at the Le Meridien on Rush Street. I gave a presentation at DePaul University or was it Hogwarts?

As I finish catching up on client work, I'm finding that I can write again. I missed it.

I wish I could say I've been on sabatical. That's so not the case. In all honesty, I have purposefully ignored blogging as I dealt with an out of control client, some medical issues, and some very serious personal changes in my life.

Also forget about my Sony Viao notebook, which has become a lemon. I just sent it back yesterday for it's third repair for the same thing–the display is dead. I`m totally testing Circuit City`s extended warranty process.

But I'm back with a lot to write about. Stay tuned.

I need to learn to say "no".

I was online chatting to a friend of mine the other day while trying help a family member with a computer problem. My friend told me he spent all of his holiday time last month fixing computers for his family. It occurred to me that friends and family do suck a lot of time from me for stuff like that and I'm torn. I don't mind helping people, but then again I start to get bogged down in everything in ridiculously long to-do lists and daily ad hoc cries for help.

Saying "no" is not about blowing people off nor is it about ignoring people close to me when they need help. It's more about only taking on what I can handle and ensuring that people who ask me for help really need the help. Today I reached way back into my past and remembered some techniques I learned from a seminar. I've revised my New Year's resolutions to include these nay-saying tactics:

• Ask Questions: When somebody asks for help, it's not as if the request comes from someone without any abilities. Ask tactical questions in way that makes people think. For example, today, I received a call from my neighbor who can't get Windows XP to load. After a couple of quick questions, I discovered my neighbor had installed a copy of XP that belonged to his cousin and had been activated on another PC. I told him to buy a copy of XP and re-install. I said, "no". Other questions I've tried with people include "Did you check the help file?", "Have you searched Google about this already?", and "Would you like a breath mint?" Questions put the ball back in their court.
• Schedule Times: Here is something I try when I get pathetically desperate, but it should be something I do regularly. When somebody asks for help, whip out the PDA or the old-fashioned planner and plug that person in the first available time. What that does is show I'm busy and I have to watch my time. This is saying "no" by saying "yes". If the person who needs help really needs it, he will wait. If he can't, then he will move on to abuse another friend.
• Charge: I recommend this tactic for non-family members and friends who are not that close. If you are like me, then time is money since much of my time is billed by the hour. This really helps either bring in more paying business or it prevents people from asking. It's more effective to have a well-known policy of charging non-family members so they don't ask you to help their friends unless these friends are prepared to pay.

I had intended on writing about some other stuff like the Enron trial, the negative media coverage of the upcoming Iraqi elections, or even that episode of Saturday Night Live from last weekend where there was actually a skit about the weak dollar (good stuff). But I'm feeling relatively down tonight and as I tried the figure out why, it struck me how much time I give to other people when I have so many things at home that need attention. There is nothing wrong with saying "no". Today, I feel like saying it more often would help me out in so many ways.

When you're done, sit around and listen to your family tell stories you've heard hundreds of times, but tell anyway. Hear everyone cackle hysterically as somebody recounts, like every year, how your aunt as a small child ate dog food or your mom as a preteen made biscuits the dog wouldn't eat. Then watch as all of the men retire to the living room to nap noisily while the women sit around the table making fun of them. After family pictures, warm bantering, and squealing children, it's time to split up the left-overs. More bantering ensues and members of your family leave one-by-one with lots of hugs.

If you do all of this, then you've had a day just like mine and you realize (risking overly sappy commentary) that it was worth the drive and any trepidation prior to today was silly. It was a good day.

Driving kills a day, but then again, flying does too. If I'm there at 5:00 am for the security stuff it won't matter since I'll end up waiting on the tarmac for two hours as Atlanta shuts down for bad weather and Los Angeles clears all bomb threats. By mid-morning I'm finally in the air, but I didn't get the precious aisle seat because I forgot to ask and I'm against the window next to a 300 pound man and I'm staring at the fascinating way his watch hides under the folds of his wrist to keep my mind off of the claustrophobia. Without stopping, my flight is two hours. If I choose cheaper tickets in exchange for a layover, my flight can be up to four or five hours. After landing at Midway, I wait another hour for my bags at the carousel unaware that a South-Sider named Mack is going through my bags for a new pair of shoes. It's now 3:00 PM. My day is pretty much over.

The other thing is expense. Because I'm building my business, I don't have large clients with bottomless pockets. If I did, I could expense it to them and fly first class all the way. But then again, I would be Eliyahu M. Goldratt. However, I'm not and my goal is just survival. The average flight from Dallas to Chicago is four hundred dollars, give or take a fifty. Add the rental car and lodging and I'm out a thousand dollars per trip. On the other hand, I can get in and out of Chicago via my old trusty Ford Focus for three hundred dollars and some change.

The downside to driving is the time. The upside is the time. I listen to audio books and music my wife can't stand, and I call people on my cell phone to ask them things I can't remember when I'm in the office. The cell phone coverage for Sprint is great in Oklahoma, but Missouri is miserable. I think when the cell towers were rolled out in Missouri, it was an experiment in road rage. Each cell tower between the Oklahoma border and Springfield on Interstate 44 is just far enough away from the next one so that my call is dropped. Every-freaking-tower. I'm not kidding. When I'm on the phone I hear the failure beep and the screen reports "Signal Faded" quickly followed by "Entering Sprint Service Area". Tell me that wasn't done on purpose. I want to beat the crap out of the "Can you hear me now?" guy when that happens since I tend to constantly repeat that phrase myself up and down I-44.

I leave here on Tuesday to drive back. I'm looking forward to the drive again. I know where all of the clean bathrooms are and will turn off my phone on I-44. It's better than flying and I can stop for white chocolate Reeses and Coke any time I want without buzzing a flight attendant or crawling over a fat guy.

After realizing what I did, I stopped at a rest stop. A whole caravan of families arrived at the same time I did. I hurried up to the bathroom because I didn't want to wait in line. As I was in the bathroom, the men came in laughing and joking with each other. This family seemed really cool because they were happy. As I walked out of the rest stop building, a van was unloading. I joked to myself it was like a clown car because people kept getting out. I knew they were with the family I had just seen. I was trying to figure out if they were going to family reunion or what. But I'm not really a social person. I usually avoid groups of people and move on–especially when I do something really bone-headed like get lost in Missouri.

Back on the road, I stopped for lunch and filled up my car. That took about 20 minutes, and I was not happy. Just I as was getting back on I-55 I was passed by a fire and rescue SUV, then a state trooper. Then traffic crawled to five miles an hour and I got pissed.

A news copter was circling in the sky ahead. As I inched forward, I saw a man with a news camera setting up a tripod across the median as a state trooper was running up to him obviously angry, forcing the camera man and a female reporter back across the median to my side of the interstate. Honestly, I don't ever remember seeing the news at any of the accidents I witnessed in Chicago or Dallas, but then again, I was also in southern Missouri.

I was forced into the right lane behind a truck that obscured what was going on. Inching forward, I could now see a small bridge and about five police cars and a fire truck on the opposite side of I-55. On my side, multiple ambulances and police cars became visible as I approached the bridge. Something was going on between the bridges, but I couldn't see and now a cop was waving us past the bridges, scowling at anybody slowing down to look. There was nothing I could see anyway.

As the truck in front of me sped up, I could see on my right, about five cars pulled onto the shoulder with people standing. I thought they were just watching the accident until I got up closer. They were the family I saw at the rest stop and they were clutching each other and crying. Some of the women were wailing and others were obviously praying. I felt a sinking feeling.

This is what I came across. And today, I'm thinking about the family and how happy they were when I saw them at the rest stop. I can do nothing but think about them as I'm trying to work. My thoughts and prayers are with them.